Mountain Ashutas

(text provided by the East Kazakhstan Regional Museum)

There is a place on Ashutas where many spirits gather. To a person with a kind heart and bright thoughts, they reveal all the secrets of nature. And for people with a black soul, they close all the doors of knowledge, release huge invisible guards-Alabai. These huge dogs, larger than clay rocks, poison everything around with their fetid breath, forcing the traveler to turn back. Therefore, this area was called “aschi”- fetid, “tas”-stone.